Reply by Bernie

I’m fortunate to have a fully equipped dedicated workshop for my woodworking. But when I use hand held power sanding tools, I collect most of the generated dust with a filter taped to the in feed side of a regular 14 inch box window fan. After a couple of hours of sanding, I take the filter outside and knock or pat a whole bunch of dust out of it.

Jon is right about hand tools. Planes are nice fun tools to use, but most often leave lines in the wood. That’s where scrapers come into play. Scrapers are what the masters used before sandpaper was invented. I love using them and they are very inexpensive. The only problem is learning how to sharpen them. You have to create a perfectly smooth 90 degree square angle on the card like piece of steel. Then you have to crush 2 opposite ends of the scraper and curl the edge leaving a burr. I learned how… so anybody can!With all my power tools, I use scrapers all the time. They save me a ton of sanding.